- “Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist”
Pastor Ken prayed…
We just love you this morning, Father, we magnify your name. Thank you for your glory. We pray that you would just open our eyes even right here today, Lord, that you would help us to see you Lord, to see you in your splendor and glory…
Prayer for a new perspective
We pray that each and every one of us would see with fresh perspective as we enter 2022, that we would see even as you see, Lord… see whatever it is we’re going through in a new light, from the perspective of the prophetic and your promises… from the perspective of love and grace and faith… Lord, help us to see right now whether it’s our family, our finances, our future, or symptoms… whatever the case is, Lord, help us to see and adjust our perspective… cause our soul to be touched by the hand of God.
Prayer for the Lord to unwind…
I hear the word “unwound.” Lord, that you would unwind those places inside of us that are tumultuous and in turmoil and where an angst has been residing, that you would unwind fear and unwind negativity and unwind trauma and struggle and angst and fear and discouragement… whatever has been stirring in our souls, Lord, that you would unwind it and unravel it…
Even right now, Lord, at the beginning of the year that we would just sense you and yield to you… that you would have your way on the inside of us … to unravel those things that get us caught up and bound and stuck. That you would unravel those hopeless looking situations … that you would unravel those pains and hurts and that which we’ve been through over the past few years… that you would unravel in a healthy way and bring hope and help and comfort and healing … and bring, once again, fresh perspective to our souls, churches, nation, whether that’s America or somewhere else around the globe…
Father, we exalt you over 2022. We just say, Lord, have your way. Thank you, Jesus.
Pastor Ken…
Good morning, everyone. Welcome back after Christmas and New Year’s break. Good to see you.
Announcement about posting “prayer prompts”
This morning, I wanted to mention one thing. Starting later this week or early next week, we’re going to be posting some prayer prompts on The Prayer Movement Facebook group on a weekly basis that will prompt you to pray for different nations around the world. We want to start giving some emphasis to praying for the nations of the 10/40 window. Once again, nations that are the most unreached groups of nations in the world for Jesus. Pastor Lynne has had it stirring in her heart to start praying for those nations again and rallying pray-ers to do the same.
And so if you haven’t already, go to theprayermovement.com and request to join the Facebook group there and watch for some prayer prompts. We’ll be posting once a week a different nation in the 10/40 window and information about that nation and some bullet points as to how you can pray in your time of prayer for that particular nation.
Declaration for 2022
I know one thing is for certain, as I have reflected and prayed about 2022, God is pressing down on the accelerator of His purposes in this time. And while the enemy has certainly done his best to try to do things that we never thought he could do, whether it be in America or around the world and the chaos and the craziness that we see, the lawlessness, et cetera, et cetera, I’m here to tell you this morning that 2022 is going to be a whole nother year. And while the enemy may have some people concerned and it may look like things are dark and difficult, I’m here to tell you that in 2022, God is going to show up in some ways we’ve not seen Him show up. And He is most certainly pressing down on the accelerator of His purpose for this generation and for this time.
God wants to build in us a greater capacity to run with Him
And so that means to me that one of the things that I know He’s wanting to do is build a greater capacity in us to run with Him… a greater capacity to fight the fight of faith. The fight is not a fight to obtain God’s grace or forgiveness or acceptance or love or anything like that. Because it’s clear: we have been accepted in the beloved. We have been forgiven once and for all and for all time, because of the shed blood of Jesus. We have been adopted into the family of God. We have been crowned with righteousness, clothed with the very merits of Jesus. He sees you as entirely lovely and beautiful as His cherished apple of His eyes, son and daughter.
We live and pray from a new perspective
And so we’re not fighting to get something. We live and pray and have our being from something … from a complete or full redemption. In fact, grace and the work of Jesus is an overpayment in every possible way so that you and I could live, pray, and be here on this Tuesday morning, the 4th of January 2022. Not “for” something but “from a place” … from a new identity, a new position, a new perspective—one of the victory, grace, crowned with righteousness, sons of the most high God, priests. A people who are called to not be swept along by the chaos of this age and culture and world, but instead to change, to shape, to make history through our words of faith, through our prayer, through the way we live. Through us yielding to Him and living our lives by faith.
Scriptural references
And I have a few different verses I’m going to read here this morning too as a way of reflection, reflecting and getting started with some prayer this morning. In Isaiah 64, it says, “Oh that you would burst from the heavens and come down, how the mountains would quake in your presence. As fire causes wood to burn and water to boil, your coming would make the nations tremble.”
This is what God is saying in response to what the enemy has done in the world, maybe in your life in some way. He may have caused some issues, but God is saying, “I’m pulling out the big guns in 2022.” He is going to do some things that we have not seen before among the nations.
And Isaiah goes on to say, “As it causes the wood to burn and water to boil, your coming would make the nations tremble. Then your enemies would learn the reason for your fame. When you came down long ago, you did awesome deeds beyond our highest expectations. And oh how the mountains quacked. For since the world began, no ear has heard, no eye has seen a God like you who works for those who wait for Him.” My goodness! Who works for those who wait for Him.
And so I’m here to tell you today that God intends this year to be a year of healing and restoration and restitution. What does the word restitution mean? That means the enemy has to pay back what has been stolen from you. The scripture reads that if a thief be caught, he can be required to pay back as much as seven times or seven-fold what you lost. And so I believe God wants to restore and bring restoration and healing and a wholeness to the Church… to our lives, to our families. And so God is wanting to build a capacity in us to run with Him, to stand with Him, to say what He is saying, to pray what He’s inspiring us to pray on the inside, to see what He sees.
Word: Do not cast away your confidence
The last time I checked, the Bible is very clear that the just are to live by faith. And there’s this passage over in Hebrews 10:35 where it says, “Therefore, do not cast away your confidence.” God is saying, do not cast away your confidence. That’s for somebody here, somebody online. You’ve been kind of maybe hesitating about 2022. And in the natural, rightfully so. Right? If we were to look back over the last two years. Maybe you haven’t even kind of thought much about 22 or maybe you’re just discouraged about where you’re at.
But God is reminding us this morning: Therefore do not cast away your confidence. That means your faith. The Bible still reads that God is good and He does only good. Come on now! One translation says that God is good and He is the source of all good. And while there can be some crazy and chaotic things going on around you, there is good inside you right now. If God is in you, good is in you. And the good that’s in you that is God, God desires for it to get out… for it to flow from you … for it to affect your mind and your emotions today. That you would go from dread and discouragement to joy and peace and encouragement and a fresh perspective. He desires for that good in us to flow out of us through our words of worship and praise and gratitude and bold declaration that becomes prophetic of our future.
We are created as a speaking spirit
You were created as a speaking spirit. You and I were designed to prophetically declare, to run with God in our declarations. The Bible says that if we would declare a thing, it would be established. Jesus said that you can have what you say if you believe in your heart and doubt not. So that’s why the Bible is so clear and emphatic about us being a people of faith, being a people who perpetually order our lives according to His teachings. Because it’s true: your soul is its own place. Your mind, and your emotions are its own place as one teacher once said. Meaning it takes on the perspective and the outlook and the atmosphere based on what you feed it and what you focus on.
The Scriptures are clues to your future
The Bible wasn’t meant to be some nice little words of encouragement that you give an intellectual nod to once in a while. The Scriptures are clues to your future. Somebody once said that success leaves clues that you can pick up on those clues and be successful in different areas of your life. And I don’t mean to oversimplify things, but the scriptures are “success clues.” The scriptures are meant to create atmosphere on the inside of us, in our souls and minds. We’re not called to be pressed into the mold in 2022. We’re called to break out and break forth and break new ground and take back and overcome evil with good as pray-ers, as believers. And that starts by being personally responsible for your own internal world. Yes, as a pray-er, especially as a pray-er and as a believer … to be someone who sows into your soul, someone who hears… The Bible says faith cometh by hearing and perpetually an ongoing hearing the words of Christ.
I just have never gotten beyond the simplicity and the profoundness and the practicality of faith. I’m a real literal person. And from when I was a teenager, when I read brother Hagin’s books on faith, I took it literally for myself. And if I saw where it said, “Ask that you may receive that your joy may be full,” well then I just stepped out and asked for healing. Or I stepped out and asked for a new job or direction for my life. And I followed the scriptures, and I renewed my mind. I’m still renewing my mind as you are. And guess what? I started to see transformation in my life. I started to see results. I don’t care if it’s 2022 or 2080. Faith will get results. The faith of God, which by the way isn’t even your faith. The Bible says it’s the gift of God. Each of us has been given a measure of the God kind and the God quality of faith. And if we’ll use that faith…
Our faith is never to be inactive
I guess one of the big reasons I’m sharing this is I feel there are times when our faith goes inactive. Hebrews 6:12 says that you be not slothful or slow or inactive, but be followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises of God. Our faith is never to be inactive. We’re never to take a faith vacation. This is this capacity I’m talking about that God wants to build into us. As long as you just want to like, “Can I just go away for a while and not have to press, not have to renew my mind, not have to use my faith and just sit back and relax.” No! I love you, but No! I’m sorry. As long as we’re in this life on this earth in this time with an enemy roaming around like a roaring lion, trying to intimidate… He’s waging a war of intimidation and fear and discouragement. But as long as he’s around and we’re on this earth and in this life, number one, as long as you’re here and have breath in your lungs, God has purpose for you. Don’t give up! Don’t give in! Don’t let those thoughts take over you. Your soul is its own place. Meaning it will take on the characteristics and the atmosphere of what you allow into it.
Beware of seducing spirits
And it’s shocking in my own experience over the years where people live sometimes. I’m not stepping on anybody’s toes because I don’t know anything. But some people are living in an outright deception in this hour. We shouldn’t be surprised. The Bible says that there are going to be seducing spirits operating and are working in, sadly, believers’ lives. And because their thoughts and their soul were unattended and they kind of left it to chance what’s going on in here and up here, they believe lies. They may even go to church.
We’re to have white-hot faith
But God intends for our souls to be saturated now, for us to not have an inactive faith, but a faith that is white hot, a faith that is forward-looking, positive, expecting the goodness of God to come to pass and to break forth on any given day at any given moment. Because the good that God wants to do and wants to flow through you occurs in conjunction with you. Come on now! He works in us and through us. We are partners with God. And while the storehouses of heaven are replete with every good gift that you need and blessings that you haven’t even laid hold of in your heart or dreamt of, they will stay there until we step in here now. And we stir up our faith to take hold of God and let the words of Jesus begin to fan the flame of that measure of faith that’s been put in us. And we begin to live and move and have our being, not based on the perspective of the world. Or hindsight of the past two years. But we begin to live and move and make decisions and organize our lives and conduct our relationships and pray and speak and do based on the revealed promises of God. It’s amazing the change that you can experience when you pour into yourself the good words of God. Glory to God.
The Word is meant to give you an atmosphere within yourself
Hebrews 10, “Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward.” In other words, the goodness of God is on the other end of you holding onto your confidence in Him. And confidence in that promise. What God speaks to us rhema directly to our spirit. And when He speaks to us through His Word, again, isn’t meant to be, “Oh isn’t that great. I’m going to tweet that today. I’m going to post that on Instagram.” No! It’s meant to shape you and inspire you and teach you. His Word is meant to teach you who you are, to give you an identity. There’s something about Jesus. He just always had a strong sense of His own identity, who He was, why He was here, who His Father was, and what He was called to do. Amen? And the Word of God is meant to give us that atmosphere and that sense of who we are and where we’re going and what we’re to be doing! On a daily basis.
But it goes on to say “For you have need of endurance so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise. For yet a little while and he who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just [that’s us] shall live by faith. But if anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who draw back to perdition.” You could say we’re not those who drift into an inactive faith. “But we are not of those who draw back to perdition but those who believe to the saving of the soul” or continue to engage our faith, to speak the Word. Feed on the Word. Daily we’re meditators on the promises of God.
Let the Words of God wash over your soul
Joshua 1:8. One of my favorite, maybe hallmark verses in my life says “This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth. But you shall meditate.” You shall pour over them. Let them wash over your soul. Let them shape you on the inside. Let them inform you daily on who you are, where you’re going, and what could be and should be and ought to be in your life. Too many Christians, too many of us, myself included in different ways are letting circumstances and what we filter through our senses inform us. And inform our emotions and maybe inform our decisions. If we aren’t passionate, if we’re not diligent, if we’re not up daily pouring the scriptures into our hearts and into our mouths, then that’s how we’re going to live. According to the filter of what we can see, feel, and what we’ve seen before.
But God intends to do something new in 22. God intends for us to see healing, restoration, and restitution. He’s wanting to break forth onto the scene, not only of our world and our churches, but our individual lives.
Don’t let your faith go dormant
The Bible says don’t cast away your confidence. Don’t cast aside your faith. Don’t let your faith go dormant. Don’t take a vacation spiritually. Instead, step up and step in. Lean in. Faith is not something that was started with a movement in the eighties and the nineties. Faith is the most relevant, needful important thing in this hour. And right in the midst of struggle, right in the midst of the dark night, right in the midst of unknowns, whatever shows up on the news today, right? In the midst of that, my God and His faith will get results. Will bring change. Will open a door for God to show up. Hallelujah! And even in the midst of this journey of faith… the Bible says we’re to fight the good fight of faith. We’re to run the race of faith, even in the midst of you holding on and you just continuing to stand and believe and continue with Him. God is doing something.
In fact, I believe that God is more concerned about what we’re becoming than just where we’re going. Yes, He’s concerned about where you’re going and what He wants you to receive. But He’s also concerned about what you’re becoming. And it’s in the process of living by faith and fighting the fight of faith and standing on His Word and engaging with endurance and patience that doesn’t give up.
It’s that, that builds capacity in us. It’s that, that prepares us for the next level. See, God’s always several steps ahead. He doesn’t reveal much to us, and I’m glad He doesn’t cause we would screw it up or maybe we would turn tail and run. But He’s always strategically working in us and preparing us and building a capacity in us for what He has prepared for us in the days and years to come if He would tarry. I jotted this down the other day. “If you will press forward beyond your comfort zone, you will obtain and experience the next level of what God has for you. Faith creates a new identity, a new reality in you and it pulls you forward.”
What God has for you is not in the past. It’s not to the sides. But it’s in front of you. The best is yet to come. It’s in your future. So we’ve got to move forward, and it’s your faith that pulls you forward. It’s your faith that causes you to have a positive forward-looking expectation. And in some ways, that’s a good definition for faith: a positive forward-looking expectation.
The Lord says it’s going to be all right
I feel like maybe some of us are entering 22 just a little apprehensive and maybe a little fearful or a little trepid. I just sense the Lord saying, “It’s going to be all right. There’s no reason to fear.” As one of our great presidents once said, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Right?
So I just encourage you to take that fear and that apprehension and just bring it to Him. Sometimes we just live with things day in and day out. We just kind of carry them. We are cowering in the face of fear of what might happen. “I don’t want to step out on that because I know what happened last time.” I feel like God want to just kind of paint a whole new perspective, a whole new way of seeing as we enter 22. That we don’t have to judge the new year and what’s before us based on the last year. That He wants to do something entirely new for you. We don’t have to cower. We may have to step forward feeling fear at times, but we can still step forward because our future is before us in front of us. And as we take those steps, even when we still maybe feel vestiges of fear. The fear is going to dissolve and diminish as we move toward Him and what He’s prepared.
Romans 1:17. “For the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. Don’t fear.” “That’s easy for you to say, Ken.” Well, I know. But guess what? I’ve fought and overcome some battles myself when it comes to fear in my life and some of the greatest breakthroughs and biggest blessings and the largest steps of promotion I’ve experienced in my life were preceded by one of the scariest, most gut wrenching, “I want to throw up” steps I’ve ever taken. And that’s what the enemy is waging. That war to try to intimidate us.
But it’s the fuel of prayer and it’s the fuel of His Word that gives you the capacity to step out and to move forward. The enemy doesn’t want us to move forward. He doesn’t want us praying because he knows what God has prepared and what he has in store. He wants to keep you right where you are, neutralized in fear. Neutralized with the perspective of the past. There’s a reason why the windshield of your car is far bigger than the rearview mirror. Cause what’s before you needs a much bigger perspective. That’s what needs to be emphasized and what we should focus on more than what’s in our past.
Good things are before us
I just want to stir up your hearts this morning, that good things are before us. And to let God’s Word sink deep into your heart, even when He’s spoken to you maybe in years past that maybe you kind of lost sight of. Stir that up again in you. Get that in front of you. Speak that over your life. Keep that before you. If there’s a scripture that’s speaking to you, get that down on a card or on your phone or commit it to memory. Fight a good fight with His Words and His promises and what He intends.
2022 is going to be a good year. I believe God is going to take some things back supernaturally on the national stage and on the worldwide stage, because you better believe that there’s going to be a return of the church before there’s a return of Christ. Where the Spirit of God brings to life and brings back the Church in a whole new way ahead of the breaking forth of Jesus in the eastern sky.
Prayed…
Thank you, Father, for your faithfulness.
Lord, we pray that you would just fill each and every one of us today with a fresh oil and a fresh wine down into our souls.
I pray for a breaking off of fear and hesitancy.
I pray for a breaking off of dread and angst and worry and discouragement that might be hanging on because of the past year or more present circumstances, whatever the case.
Father, I declare that over this community, everybody who’s hearing this now, I declare in the name of Jesus, burdens be removed, yokes be destroyed.
I declare and I release an anointing to cause fear to dissolve, to cause a discouragement and pain to be enraptured and to be a capsulated in the love and the healing power of God.
I pray for just a fresh infusion of faith. I pray for a stirring up of people’s hearts with encouragement, with hope, with a forward-looking expectation today
I pray that you would just pull back the curtains on the inside of us and help us to see even now, Father, that you would just reveal to someone right now, something good that you intend for them in the coming year. That you would pull back the curtains for us individually and collectively as the Church and help us to see where you’re taking us in the year ahead.
We pray for the Holy Ghost to plow straight through people’s hearts and lives and circumstances like a divine bulldozer plowing out of the way, all the debris, all the clutter, all the stuff of the past… all the trauma, the emotional pain, the unknown’s… whatever stands in our way, whatever clutters our hearts, whatever hinders us, or slows us, or keeps us from moving forward today, Father, we pray that the Spirit of the living God would bulldoze out of the way in our hearts personally, in our churches, in our nations today. That you would make a way where there doesn’t appear to be a way in the natural. But that’s okay. We don’t live by sight. We don’t live by seeing by we live by believing. And we believe that you’re good and that you will have the final say.
Lord, we just cast every care, every worry, every hesitant place in our hearts … every negative thought… we just hand it over to you … we give it to you this morning… maybe it was something that happened last year. Something somebody did to you. Something that occurred, something you experienced, something that was lost … whatever the case is, it’s time to turn it over to God.
So we just pray for clearings today. A clearing out today in hearts, in lives, a clearing out in the Church, a clearing out of clutter, a clearing out of the enemy’s work. A clearing out of distractions and fears and things that hold us back and ties that bind us and keep us in a place that is not you anymore.
Shake that off. Shake that off. We shake it off in Jesus’ name. Discouragement, get off in Jesus’ name. Fear, go in Jesus’ name… Darkness, you flee in Jesus’ name. Depression and panic, stress syndromes, you go. We command you to go off of people’s souls, off of churches.
Prayer for strongholds
We break the strongholds that have been assigned or attached to churches because of trauma because of abuse because of whatever. But I sense there’s been churches that have been hindered or slowed or neutralized or are stuck for maybe years in some instances, because of an assigned stronghold of the enemy perpetrated by something. And so today, Father, we pray for a breaking off of that. We come after that today. We’re coming after the works of the devil today. We’re coming after every stronghold in Jesus’ name… in churches… in the lives of believers and pray-ers, in the lives of leaders in the political arena who are Christians called to that arena, called to exercise influence. We lift them up today. We speak encouragement. We speak hope. We command darkness to go and light to come …
Prayer for light to dawn
Opening, opening… we pray for light to dawn …light to cascade… the light of hope, the light of God, the light of love, the light of renewal, the light of revival, the light, the light of God … We pray for rays of light to burst forth through the cloudiness, through the chaos, through the unknowns, through the past perspectives, through what has gone on in the past years… we pray for light… dawning on America, dawning on the nations, dawning on Israel today, dawning on hearts and lives and homes and families and hearts. Breaking through.. we make way for light and truth.
Lord, your Word says you desire light and truth in the inward most parts of us. And so we pray for light and truth to find a way, to make its way.
Prayer for the breaking off of strongholds of deception
We pray for a breaking off of strongholds of deception and lies that have attached themselves to believers, to leaders, to people … We come after them today with the blood of Jesus… with the sword of the Spirit… We pray for a severing of those assignments, a severing and a breaking up and a surgical removal by the Spirit of God of those weights and those sins and those deceptions and those lies and those false pretenses … and those lenses that people are living through… those old lenses that are clouded and it’s almost like people need cataract surgery in the spirit to see clearly … broken up in Jesus’ name… broken up, broken up. Not a destructive breaking up but a positive breaking up … a breaking up of the enemy’s devices … a breaking up of the cloudiness that has set in over people’s hearts and souls and lives and families and churches. a breaking up… a clearing out … an opening, an opening my for God to come, an opening for God to do… pople that have been stuck, suddenly are unstuck. They get a breakthrough, they open up their hearts and suddenly they’re unstuck
Prayer for the veil to be removed
Nations that have been closed to the Gospel spiritually speaking, there’s just been a veil there. Lord, today we pray that the veil would be rent, that the veil would be broken, pulled back. That the curtains in the realm of the spirit even have been closed to nations, closed to people groups, closed to certain regions and areas of the world and cities. Lord, we pray for curtains to open up, for there to be a breaking up of every stronghold. We come after every demonic entity that has waged a war or has exercised influence over those people in those regions and those areas and countries and individuals and even families.
Prayer for a tsunami of God
And today, Father, we release a tsunami of God. We release an earthquake of God, that you would come down and cause there to be a quake, that there become a tumult that would shake and remove and break and clear out and open up and prepare the way for the coming of the Lord in Jesus’ name … for the coming of revival, for the coming of awakening. Even now today, Lord, in our hearts and our lives in this church, … we’re not content to just stay idly by. We’re not content to remain stuck in a rut. We’re not content to repeat 20 21, but 2022, we declare new things are breaking forth onto the scene and landscape of our lives. We declare “Be thou removed.” We declare “make a way spirit realm. We declare “make a way angels of heaven for God is coming through in a mighty unprecedented way. In 2022, we declare it over this church. We declare it over our lives… no more stealing of the enemy, no more chaos. We declare healing, restoration, restitution, breakthrough, promotion, revival, renewal over our churches, over our hearts, over our lives, over our police, those politicians in the offices that we’ve elected them to … today in Jesus’ name… over America, Lord…
We pray that you would shift things in this nation in a way that leads us to you. That leads us to an awakening… whatever needs to happen or come. I pray that there would be a way prepared for Jesus to break forth onto the scene in every arena of America, in every arena of our lives in Jesus’ name…
